Surfs Up

(The view from my room in Mantanita)

The last few days have been spent lounging on the beach and doing some surfing. On Friday I spent most of the afternoon surf kayaking. It was even more fun than I had anticipated. The waves were pretty decently sized, and after a few tries I felt like I was really getting the hang of it. After having been out for about an hour, my friend Andres started to yell at me from his kayak. I paddled over to him and watched a pod of about 12 dolphins swim by, about 25 feet away!

(Keta riding one of the waves back into shore)

Yesterday I decided it was time to try out board surfing. Cecily and I decided to take lessons to try and learn. We spent the first 30 minutes practicing on the beach, on an imaginary surfboard drawn in the sand. Finally, we were ready to take it to the water. It was about as I expected and was pretty difficult to get standing up on the board. After falling down a lot, I managed to figure out how to stand up on the thing and had a good number of decent rides.

(That picture is not of me, but you can imagine that’s exactly what I looked like…)

Last night a few more friends from Banos came into town and we all hung out and had some drinks. It was great to be out in Mantanita with all of my good friends from Banos. I know that my time left with them is short, and it was great to see them some more.

This morning I woke up, had breakfast then headed to the beach. I decided to rent a board for a few more hours and try to get a little better at the surfing thing. I got a few more good rides in, as well as a few more beat downs. After I was worn out I did some laying out on the beach and officially got burnt.

A few hours ago I arrived in the town of Puerto Lopez. I decided it was time to move on from the Mantanita life, and explore somewhere else. The town of Puerto Lopez itself is nothing too exciting, but it is the basing point for exploring Ecuador’s only coastal national park, Machalilla. I traveled here on my own, but Keta, as well as Val, Kyle and Lydia should be joining me tomorrow evening. I plan on spending the day tomorrow visiting the park and checking out all is has to offer.